Seven Month Itch

Seven Month Itch
'Well Signora, 10 kilos is quite a significant weight gain I'm afraid,' frowned the nurse. I couldn't help glaring at the sweaty rolls of flesh jiggling on her arms as she fiddled with the weights on the scales.
'I'm seven months pregnant fatty, what's your excuse?' I replied. Of course, I said no such thing - but I wanted too. Bloody cheek.
Then the gynaecologist did a quick examination and, being ridiculously ticklish, all his prodding of my tummy made me giggle. Talk about a total loss of dignity. My friend the nurse was highly amused by the whole scene. There's nothing like total strangers laughing at you when you don't have any underpants on.
The gyny confirmed that baby is head down and apparently doing very well. I have just 3 or 4 hundred more blood and various other tests left to do now. Thank God you gain a couple of litres of blood in pregnancy otherwise I wouldn't have any left. In fact, between the blood tests and the mosquitoes, I seem to have the most sought after blood in the land.
Anyway, this week I've been looking through the list of necessary items for the hospital bag and I have to say that it's slightly disconcerting. A nightdress with wide sleeves to wear during labour? Maybe I've misunderstood something about where the baby comes out from - probably wasn't paying enough attention in my antenatal class that day. G looked through the list with me and rather predictably liked the sound of the paper (or mesh) (??) knickers. He spotted 'intimate soap' and said,
'Now Mel, don't forget this and show yourself up as a typical English girl who never uses the bidet.' Ha Ha.
'Millions of English people can't even spell bidet and still somehow have miraculously clean bottoms,' I smiled through gritted teeth. My hormones are making me so sensitive that I'm even ready to defend wall-to-wall carpets in the bathroom and tagliatelle with a side order of chips these days.
The only thing I've bought so far from the list are the maternity sanitary towels, which are quite frankly terrifying. At the bottom of the list it says that it's not necessary to bring a 'guaina' or a 'pancera', which is good as I have no idea what they are. There's so much to learn in pregnancy and learning it all in a foreign language is pretty exhausting.
In the meantime, I'm just enjoying the Italian summer: 35 degrees in the shade and tarmac melting into soup in the street, lovely. Fortunately, being pregnant in Italy doesn't mean just blood tests and paper knickers, it also means you can walk around flapping a fan and wearing a silly sun hat and get away with it. If that chubby nurse wore my sun hat she'd just look daft.